At this point, I almost just gave up and left the account open. Before long, I felt the tidal pull of convenience luring me back into regular shopping.
This same logic characterizes other collective-action problems – such as climate change or political reform – that require mass participation. But if everyone embraced apathy, progress in these domains would be literally impossible, and we know that political, social, and environmental reform does happen. So there must be some threshold of involvement that generates change.
Harvard Political Science Professor Erica Chenoweth’s 2012 book, Why Civil Resistance Works, studied 100 nonviolent campaigns for government change in the 20th century. Her research found that when 3.5 percent of a population became actively involved in a non-violent campaign, it succeeded.
But she also cautioned against gloom, stressing the gradually growing awareness about the negative externalities of the tech industry and shifting attitudes about the role of government. “In America in 1931, you would have predicted that a handful of oligarchs would rule over a population of serfs. But that’s not what happened. There was tremendous public sector innovation under Roosevelt with the New Deal,” she said.
Congresswoman Porter echoed the sentiment that the pandemic could galvanize progressive change. “I think the pandemic is highlighting so many of the underlying economic problems in this country, everything from healthcare inequalities to differences in worker protections and the need for a diverse supply of products,” she said.
I no longer wanted to accept the consequences of staying.
Nick Romeo also writes for The Washington Post, The New Yorker, and many other publications. Follow him @Nickromeoauthor
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own.
